PHILADELPHIA — Whatever warm and fuzzy feelings the 76ers expected upon their return home were contrived. Probably as real as their attempts to box out Brooklyn’s Reggie Evans.

An abysmal showing in the third quarter sent the Sixers packing in a 109-89 loss to the Nets Tuesday night at Wells Fargo Center.

Perhaps lulled into a false sense of hope, helped along by a one-point deficit at halftime, the Sixers fell apart in the third quarter. They were outscored by Brooklyn, 35-14, in the period, with Deron Williams scoring nine of his 22 points and Gerald Wallace dumping in 10 of his 11.

Greeted with booing from floor to ceiling, the Sixers (15-21) lost for the 15th time in their last 20 games, and extended their current losing streak to four games.

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“I don’t like going home straight after the season,” the Sixers’ Thad Young said, shaking his head. “I want to be in the playoffs. I want to be contending. And right now, we’re not even in the talks. We’re not even a contending team. When we start playing defense and going out there working together … there will be games we win. The effort is there. We’re all playing hard. We just have to play hard as a team.”

Jrue Holiday played well, as he usually does, delivering 19 points and eight assists. Spencer Hawes extended his string of resurgent play with 14 points off the bench.

The third quarter really was as disastrous as it sounded.

The Nets shot 14-for-19 in the third. The Sixers, who give up an average of 24 third-quarter points per game, had surrendered that many only seven minutes after intermission. Brooklyn staked an 18-2 run by hitting nine of its first 10 shots of the second half, and the game basically was over right then.

“They hit every shot, we couldn’t get any stops and it just steam-rolled,” Sixers coach Doug Collins said.

Couple the Nets’ hot scoring in the third with the ridiculous rebounding clinic put on by Evans, the former Sixer who had a career-best 23 boards in only three quarters, and the Sixers had no shot.

“That’s what (Evans) gets paid to do,” Holiday said.

Said Evans: “I don’t need to score. I just do what I do.”

Maybe the Sixers expected better on their home floor, where they hadn’t played since Dec. 23. The fans might have expected better, too, which would explain all of the booing.

Things only got uglier as the game progressed, with Nick Young justifying an airball by looking at an official and tapping his forearm and Collins emptying his bench and turning to rookies Arnett Moultrie and Maalik Wayns with 10 minutes to go.

A lousy showing by a lethargic group.

“It’s kind of like a whirlwind. You try to fight back as hard as you can, but it’s kind of too late,” Holiday said, “especially when you get down by 20 so fast and especially with a team like that that has so many shooters, so many guns.

“Honestly, I don’t remember how long (their run) took.”

Needing a win — less to snap their skid, more to regain the confidence their coach says they never lost — the Sixers kept things nearly level with the Nets in the opening half.

And Holiday did it all by himself. Literally.

In the first quarter, Holiday shot 4-for-4 with 12 points and six assists. He had a hand in each point scored by the Sixers, who trailed Brooklyn, 26-24, heading into the second quarter.

A pair of back-and-forth possessions closed out the first half with the Sixers behind, 48-47. Then the game fell apart for them, starting with that forgettable third quarter.

The Sixers don’t even get a grace period to bury the memory of this game, with a visit to Toronto on tap for tonight.

“No rest for the weary,” Collins said.

“Tough times don’t last. Tough people do,” the Sixers’ Evan Turner said. “I know a few of us are confident guys and we feel we can get it turned around. I’m not going to sit here and worry about it. It already happened. We have to try hard as a unit to dig out of it. To sit here and scream and shout about it, we have to get to the next game and stay confident.”